It’s a massive understatement, but there’s a lot of ice in Antarctica. Great giant blocks of ice the size of castles. In fact, they’re the young ‘uns, the bits of ice that have broken off glaciers or ice shelves and drifted out into the sea. It’ll take about 20,000 to 40,000 years for them to melt down to something you can put into your measure of gin & tonic.

We had excursions in motorized dinghies around these iceberg graveyards, to get a sense of their enormity, broadly aware that the ice is continuously melting and the iceberg could potentially tip over on one of its sides. Do you know the sound of groaning ice? I would like to have known, albeit from a safe distance !

Oh how MAGNIFICENT – these are SO different to the ice-bergs we saw in Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon, Iceland that were tainted with volcano ash and just a “wee-bit” smaller than what you’ve experienced, lol! 😉

It was in February, so it was late in the southern hemisphere summer. On the trips out on the dinghy, I would probably have worn thermals, two cotton layers, a fleece and the big jacket. So, five. I don’t remember feeling cold. And every time I got back onto the ship, I would have to shed back down to 2 layers.